


Birches

by rowanthestrange_yugihell



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/F, Get it while it's hot, In Case It Becomes Non-Canon Compliant, Other, Space!Bill, TARDIS Fancying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 23:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12593128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowanthestrange_yugihell/pseuds/rowanthestrange_yugihell
Summary: I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,And climb black branches up a snow-white trunkToward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,But dipped its top and set me down again.That would be good both going and coming back.One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.- Robert Frost





	Birches

* * *

  


Bill meets her first as a supernova.

A supernova _in progress_ \- all potential becoming physical, but empty, but _real_. Piggybacking the experience of something that can't feel the joy of this moment for itself. A star has no nerves, no emotions, no heart, but _she_ does, oh, she does, _thousands_ of them. 

_'Easy now.'_

The expansive darkness that is her guide, playmate, lover, reigns her in. You can come back from being stretched too thin, but best not to do it in the first place. To experience time is the privilege to learn from one's mistakes - to experience space, the privilege to learn from another's. 

As Bill revels in the heat of the moment, something catches her eye, sinking its claws into her and bending her out of shape. Another supernova - no, two of them, inside a ship, inside a person, both burning distinctly, but for this split second they are _one_ and heading right towards her.

It flings itself at her as she explodes, grabs hold of her core, pivots around her, and with a rush of pure pleasure, releases at the apex of its arc, slingshotting away on her shockwaves at an incredible speed.

She sees the laughing woman in the space between shifting atoms, passes through her body and mind like a ghost, becomes soaked in her thoughts like swooping through a rain shower.

Ecstasy. Adrenaline. _'One could do worse than be a swinger of birches'_.

Bill separates from the woman, as she in turn separates from her ship. They untangle but cling to one another, thrumming, not with blood, but with a single-pointedness for each other. She's intruding. They aren't flying, they’re _flying_. 

It isn't the Doctor. No hearts beat in her chest. The TARDIS is young and in the throes of first love. But they could be. Bill has seen the universe, _been_ the universe, and never yet seen a mirror of the alien - a true unwarped reflection, not through a glass darkly - but here she is. Or is the Doctor the reflection? Who is chasing whose tail?

Does the Doctor know this woman exists? That feels important. The Doctor needs to know. She wants to reach out across the universe and etch into a pair of hearts so they’ll say on every beat, ‘It's alright, whatever happens, the moment has been prepared for, you are not alone’.

She should do that right now. 

But there's a woman in front of her, standing on tiptoe at the end of the highest branch of a swaying tree, teetering dangerously as she peers into the distance to see what's next, and then what, and then what. It's terrifying, beautiful, mesmerising, and for all her talk of being the universe, she is after all, only human.

Something pushes Bill in the small of her back that doesn't exist.

_'Go and play then.'_

The engines rev into life again, and so does the woman - wide eyes glittering like the teeth she bares in a grin and a challenge. Time for round two? Ten? A hundred? There are a lot of zeroes here.

Bill feels the ship reach out and lock onto something. She follows its trail and sees a binary solar system about to blow, and the valley between the two stars. It looks promising. It looks like a metaphor. I'd like to find myself between _your_ tantalising orbs.

A pair of eyes snap up and meet her gaze. She isn't real, she isn't physical, she isn't there, but the woman sees her anyway.

"Dare me."

She does.

  



End file.
